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My final project for the semester will involve me working with Good Shepherd – what exactly that will entail I don’t know for sure yet. After meeting with Ethne and Ruby, I know we’ll be filming something between now and the end of semester, perhaps video portraits of people and their stories, but other than that it isn’t completely clear. I can’t definitively connect what I’ve done over the last few weeks to a documentary idea. However, I’ll talk about the techniques I’ve learnt and how they can translate into situations where I may be working with participants for Good Shepherd, as well as how the readings and other material has influenced my thoughts on documentary and its purpose.
Working as a media student with Good Shepherd there will be a certain expectation that I will have at least basic knowledge of whatever equipment I am using, if not thorough. Having a couple of weeks to learn my way around the camera will not only allow me to be more efficient when working on a production, but will also give me the flexibility to experiment and change different settings to create interesting shots. The week 3 homework exercise allowed me to play around with these ideas a little bit, but I think I may continue to use the cameras in my spare time to get a better feel for them and improve my skills.
Looking at Michael Renov’s four functions of documentary, my purpose is to persuade and promote – Working with Good Shepherd will hopefully allow me to do that, no matter how small the impact is. As I tried to find inspiration for my project over the first few weeks I looked at other documentaries which fell under this function. An Inconvenient Truth was one example of this type of documentary. While well known and a commercial success, it didn’t necessarily have a profound or visible impact on the issue it covered. On the contrary, Blackfish, which I covered in my week 4 blog post, created a rippling effect which eventually led to change as Seaworld stopped breeding orcas in the US. Both were interesting examples that had achieved different levels of success and impact, yet researching them reassured me that this was the direction I wanted to take.
Something new that has piqued my interest over the last month however, is experimental film and how techniques seen may be used in documentary. As I mentioned in my video, if I for whatever reason don’t end up working with Good Shepherd, I have discovered several other things I may enjoy. Our brief look in class at experimental film inspired me to look elsewhere, which brought me back to a film I looked at in my first year Introduction to Cinema class, Ballet Méchanique. An extremely unsettling and odd experience that revolves around strange moving shapes and images, I’m not sure I still completely understand it. However, I found it engrossing, and I believe I would really enjoy creating an experimental documentary that conveyed an important message in a subtle way. I feel confident that I could take off in a different direction if I needed to for this project, or even try something like this as a side project.
References
An Inconvenient Truth, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=inconvenienttruth.htm.
Renov, M (1993), Theorizing Documentary.
Blog links
Week 1: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/matthew-kennedy/2017/07/22/week-1-blog-documentary-as-action/
Week 2: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/matthew-kennedy/2017/07/29/week-2-blog-documentary-as-action/
Week 3: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/matthew-kennedy/2017/07/31/week-3-blog-documentary-as-action/
Week 4: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/matthew-kennedy/2017/08/11/week-4-blog-documentary-as-action/